Month: August 2009

This is about neither war nor even a natural resource in demand. It’s about a peaceful agreement over changes in nature: As climate change is melting the glaciers defining the borders of Switzerland the government is simply redrawing the European map in collaboration with Austria, Italy and France. Complete absence of trouble, it seems. Today…

I have mentioned Jared Diamond before – professor of geography and author of several outstanding books. But so far I haven’t mentioned the most obvious: the illustration on page 497 of (my Penguin Books paperback edition of) Collapse there is an illustration of two world maps, one highlighting “Political Trouble Spots of the Modern World”…

Created by the completion of a dam in 1956 Lake Sidney Lanier is a reservoir in the northern part of Georgia, USA. Just north of Atlanta it now supplies this city with about three fourths of its tap water. Now as water is less abundant and Atlanta has grown huge a two decade dispute over…

Thursday a hearing in the US “Senate Environment and Public Works Committee” concluded climate change is a real (sic!), imminent and somewhat indirect “national security threat” as it will be heightening the intensity of conflicts abroad, create water shortages in some regions, crop failure, and cause environmentally displaced people to cross borders. “There’s a building…